Colonial Trash to Island Treasure: The Chaney of St. Croix

Chaney is the name given to the porcelain shards found in the soil and washed up on the beaches of St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. A hybrid of the words for “china” and “money”, chaney refers to fragments of European ceramics brought to St. Croix by the island’s former colonisers: England, France, the...

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Autor principal:	Jessica Priebe
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Yale University 2021
Materias:	Fine Arts N Arts in general NX1-820
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/0641b73a69784dd8b41c51bb8fc56dd7
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:0641b73a69784dd8b41c51bb8fc56dd72021-12-01T10:56:43ZColonial Trash to Island Treasure: The Chaney of St. Croix10.17658/issn.2058-5462/issue-21/jpriebe2058-5462https://doaj.org/article/0641b73a69784dd8b41c51bb8fc56dd72021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://britishartstudies.ac.uk/issues/issue-index/issue-21/colonial-trash-to-island-treasurehttps://doaj.org/toc/2058-5462Chaney is the name given to the porcelain shards found in the soil and washed up on the beaches of St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. A hybrid of the words for “china” and “money”, chaney refers to fragments of European ceramics brought to St. Croix by the island’s former colonisers: England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Cast out as plantation garbage and broken in symbolic acts of destruction, chaney is a symbol of colonial entanglement, intercultural exchange, and resistance. Drawing on postcolonial critiques of colonial settlement and slavery, this article considers the distribution, circulation, and archival memory of chaney in the context of Atlantic slavery, especially as it relates to the consumption of European ceramics by enslaved individuals. This article also investigates the afterlife of chaney, which is collected by local artisans who repurpose the shards into jewellery. The recuperation of chaney shows how the remnants of prior contact and exchange with foreigners are being reworked by the people of St. Croix to create their own forms of cultural production that offer a symbolic resistance to the hierarchies of European luxury design. This paper concludes by examining the work of St. Croix-based artist La Vaughn Belle, whose Chaney paintings and porcelain designs for Royal Copenhagen move chaney beyond the limits of its materiality to explore the politics of resistance, identity, and colonial responsibility. To this end, I argue that the transformation of chaney from island debris into artworks and decorative objects can be viewed in the wider context of artists using broken or discarded former items of distinction to address the legacies of slavery and colonialism.Jessica PriebeYale UniversityarticleFine ArtsNArts in generalNX1-820ENBritish Art Studies, Iss 21 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	Fine Arts N Arts in general NX1-820
spellingShingle	Fine Arts N Arts in general NX1-820 Jessica Priebe Colonial Trash to Island Treasure: The Chaney of St. Croix
description	Chaney is the name given to the porcelain shards found in the soil and washed up on the beaches of St. Croix, US Virgin Islands. A hybrid of the words for “china” and “money”, chaney refers to fragments of European ceramics brought to St. Croix by the island’s former colonisers: England, France, the Netherlands, and Denmark. Cast out as plantation garbage and broken in symbolic acts of destruction, chaney is a symbol of colonial entanglement, intercultural exchange, and resistance. Drawing on postcolonial critiques of colonial settlement and slavery, this article considers the distribution, circulation, and archival memory of chaney in the context of Atlantic slavery, especially as it relates to the consumption of European ceramics by enslaved individuals. This article also investigates the afterlife of chaney, which is collected by local artisans who repurpose the shards into jewellery. The recuperation of chaney shows how the remnants of prior contact and exchange with foreigners are being reworked by the people of St. Croix to create their own forms of cultural production that offer a symbolic resistance to the hierarchies of European luxury design. This paper concludes by examining the work of St. Croix-based artist La Vaughn Belle, whose Chaney paintings and porcelain designs for Royal Copenhagen move chaney beyond the limits of its materiality to explore the politics of resistance, identity, and colonial responsibility. To this end, I argue that the transformation of chaney from island debris into artworks and decorative objects can be viewed in the wider context of artists using broken or discarded former items of distinction to address the legacies of slavery and colonialism.
format	article
author	Jessica Priebe
author_facet	Jessica Priebe
author_sort	Jessica Priebe
title	Colonial Trash to Island Treasure: The Chaney of St. Croix
title_short	Colonial Trash to Island Treasure: The Chaney of St. Croix
title_full	Colonial Trash to Island Treasure: The Chaney of St. Croix
title_fullStr	Colonial Trash to Island Treasure: The Chaney of St. Croix
title_full_unstemmed	Colonial Trash to Island Treasure: The Chaney of St. Croix
title_sort	colonial trash to island treasure: the chaney of st. croix
publisher	Yale University
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/0641b73a69784dd8b41c51bb8fc56dd7
work_keys_str_mv	AT jessicapriebe colonialtrashtoislandtreasurethechaneyofstcroix
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Colonial Trash to Island Treasure: The Chaney of St. Croix

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